What Pisses Us Off

May 11, 2012
Written by Sebastian Moss

It’s Friday, and that means that we’ve had a long week of hard work to get all annoyed at life. To help vent our anger a little, Cameron Teague and I have compiled a list of things that get us all irate.

Seb: People who still call this gen “next gen”. It’s just stupid, we’re 6 or so years into the current gen and there are already leaks regarding the proper next gen, and a kinda next gen Wii is coming out this year. Catch up to now already.

Strangely, one of the worst offenders of this are developer job listings where they say “Applicants must have next-gen console (PS3, 360) experience.”

Cam: I have lost track of just what “gen” we are in, so I feel your pain there. But what really pisses me off are developers who feel the need to delay games for the addition of multiplayer and then don’t put any real effort into it, leaving games with a lackluster MP experience. The most recent perp is Irrational Games, with their delay of Bioshock Infinite which is rumored to be because of the addition of MP. It didn’t work with Bioshock 2 and the first one did just fine without MP, so how about letting us gamers enjoy a single player experience for once!

Seb: Well, along that vein – if Infinite was delayed for multiplayer, then they should have at least been honest about it. “We need to polish our game” is not an excuse if the extra few months is for shoving in online where it shouldn’t be.

On a related note of lame excuses, what really pisses me off is the entirety of the Sony PR machine. They knew that the Vita would launch without functional remote play, yet they marketed it as if it was a day one feature. Here, take a look at this vid:

Nowhere does it say “not available at launch”, not even in the fine print. It was deliberate misinformation in an effort to increase sales. And now they’re making things worse by refusing to comment on its progress or even being the slightest bit open.

This is a systemic problem that afflicts the entirety of the PlayStation division, and it just breeds distrust and a lack of consumer confidence.

When the PSN was hacked, Sony promised us more openness about PSN downtime and maintenance. It took them until this year to set up the PlayStation Digital Platforms community division to help make things more clear. We then had more downtime (which also pisses me off), with the PS Blog being blessed with a post from the PDP – did we get any explanation? Nope, just promises of future explanations… again.

Cam: Sony and their PR effort in general has been pissing me off lately. There are so many features that the Vita has and that were pimped from day one, but have yet to find their way to the handheld or they are there, but are not supported. There are so many things the Vita should have had available at launch, like PS1 games, remote play, and more games that use transfarring.

On a completely unrelated topic, remember those days when the PS1 and the PS2 were the place to get RPGs? There were no better to be found… so yeah, it pisses me off when I see the lack of drop dead JRPGs on the market, instead replaced by dated and uninviting efforts. Sure, we got Valkyria Chronicles, Eternal Sonata, and 3D Dot Game Heroes, but in between were dull efforts left and right. The genre needs an influx of new ideas and possibly new talent, or else it’s going to die out and be replaced by Western RPGs, which is something I would hate to see.

Seb: Oh but you can play some of those PS2 JRPGs… y’know if you buy them again. I agree, this generation has sucked for JRPG fans, or J-anything fans. And it’s only going to get worse next gen.

Cam: Wait, what gen? haha.

Seb: Haha, exactly.

And where the hell is Agent. Was it ever real? Probably R* had some half-hearted belief that they might make it, but it clearly wasn’t far enough along to deserve a reveal. A lame attempt at headline-grabbing.

Cam: I cannot stand it when these companies announce a game and then go silent about it, all the while releasing tons of other games announced after it. Agent is of course one of those but I am mainly thinking about my favorite whipping boy – Square Enix and Final Fantasy Versus XIII. They announced it back in 2006, and now they have gone all ninja on us, leaking only a few details every year or so. While this is going down, Square Enix decided to release a ridiculous amount of games. How about announcing a game, then finishing the game before you move on to your next project? Sadly, I fear we will see Final Fantasy XIII-3 before we ever get our hands on Versus. What else pisses you off?